Newly Formed G23 Will Help Marketers Reach Women
Posted in Miscellany by Anne
An article in Stuart Elliott’s New York Times advertising column caught my eye this morning: Speaking to Women, With Firsthand Experience.
The Omnicom Group in New York, the largest advertising holding company, is forming the consultancy G23 to help marketers reach women. In the name, the ‘G’ stands for Group and the ‘23′ is for the pair of chromosomes that carries the sex difference between women and men. This new group is formed by senior women leaders at Omnicon agencies who hold positions in public relations, cultural anthropology, corporate identity, media services, behavioral planning and digital marketing.
Agencies and agency companies are increasing their efforts to help clients aim pitches at women. The work is parallel to efforts to improve life inside agencies for women and appoint more women to executive jobs.
The power of women in the marketplace is undisputed. Surveys indicate that female consumers in the United States buy or influence the buying of more than 75 percent of all goods.
But ad makers have long struggled to find the right ways to approach women, as evidenced by a remark made decades ago by an industry leader, David Ogilvy: “The consumer is not an idiot. She is your wife.”
As well as providing clients assets across brands and disciplines, G23 will also compile it’s own information. “One example is a study, conducted for G23 by the research companies Harris Interactive and Pacific Ethnography, that examines the economic behavior of women in 16 countries. The study, which cost more than $1 million, groups the women into eight “tribes” and compares them to other women rather than men.”
I say good for them, and it’s about time. After all that we know about women consumers from books like Marketing to Women by Marti Barletta, and compelling reasearch as done by EPM Communications with its yearly All About Women Consumers, advertisers are still struggling to understand how to effectively reach women. And as the article points out, marketing effectively to women is not limiting; it is advertising in “mixed company” and can be effective with men as well.
I wish G23 great success in improving the quality of marketing to women, and in their efforts to recruit more young women into the business to groom into powerful marketing voices for the future.




